


Don't Remember Ever Hating You

by transtwinyards



Series: Life Goes On [2]
Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Blood of Olympus Spoilers, Friendship, Gen, House of Hades Spoilers, Profanity, post-BoO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 19:30:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3948889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transtwinyards/pseuds/transtwinyards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy gets sentimental about a friendly gift not given to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Remember Ever Hating You

**Author's Note:**

> a side thing to Life Goes On, in Percy's POV. Wanted to try his character a little bit.

Reyna was wearing a funny shirt. Percy’s seen his fair share of funny shirts. He had like ten funny shirts back at home, most of which didn’t fit him. But this was different.

Not even ten seconds ago, Percy walked up to say hi. He hadn’t seen Reyna in a while, not even a sight of her yesterday since, according to Jason, she was hiding out in Nico’s cabin. Huh, who knew, right? Reyna, the praetor, and Nico, the creepy kid who was always glaring at him, besties.

But Percy had to get used to it, his life was basically the epitome of weird. He had a Cyclops for a step-sibling, a satyr for a best friend, and a girlfriend with the stormiest eyes and the strongest judo flip in all of Long Island. See? Weird.

Getting sidetracked here.

Reyna said hi back, and that’s when Percy noticed the shirt. “Nice shirt,” he said to her.

“Thanks,” the praetor replied as she sipped her cup. She was sitting with him on the Poseidon table, considering the lack of tables or cabins for Bellona. He should talk to Annabeth about that. Wait, did Bellona have a Greek counterpart or was she mainly just Roman? He should talk to Annabeth about that too.

“… to me,” He heard Reyna said, but he only caught the last part.

“Sorry, what did you just say? Man, really f— I’m really distracted today, sorry,” Percy stammered, embarrassed that he’d been zoning out while talking to Reyna. He really shouldn’t have stayed awake last night. Or, at least tried to fall asleep better. Nightmares keep him up, okay? And Sally was fresh out of sleeping pills.

“I said Nico gave it to me,” Reyna repeated, taking a bite out of the toast that was served at the hall that morning.

Percy blinked.

Okay, back up.

“Nico. As in, Nico the guy from the Hades cabin? He _gave_ that shirt to you?”

“Yeah, why, you have a problem with that?” Reyna asked, suddenly appearing menacing while munching on her jelly toast.

Percy held his hands up as a sign of surrender, “No, no, it’s just— _Really_? Nico. You’re sure it’s not some _other_ Nico, right?”

The praetor sighed in exasperation, “What other Nico would I be talking about? Surely there’s no _other_ Nico di Angelo who dragged the Parthenos with me and Hedge across the Mediterranean, right?”

“Uh…”

With a deep breath and the roll of her eyes, Reyna leaned back from her seat, “Chase, how the hell do you even _deal_ with your boyfriend?”

Annabeth’s blond head popped up from the Athena table. She shrugged, “He giving you trouble? If he’s confused about something, try to understand why he’s confused first. He’ll keep asking about it if you don’t explain it to him properly.”

“Traitor!” Percy shouted at her.

“You’ll thank me later, Seaweed Brain,” she shouted back, leaning forward and getting out of Percy line of sight. He probably will, especially if Annabeth knew it. Annabeth knew a lot of things.

When he looked back at Reyna, she was just glaring at him. Like, the mild ‘why do I know you’ glare, not the battle glare.

“I’m not gonna explain it to you. Go deal with it yourself,” And with that, she tore a piece off of her toast and tossed it into a fire nearby. Percy briefly wondered to himself who she prayed to.

Now, Percy usually wasn’t _this_ scatter-brained in the morning. Usually, he was even more distracted, but that was after Tartarus. That was before beating Gaea and this morning? He was unusually less distracted today.

He glanced around the hall, spotting Reyna leaving. He huffed, Annabeth was absolutely right, as always. His head wasn’t going to let him rest if he didn’t find out what perplexed him so much.

What _did_ confuse him about the shirt? The fact that Nico gave it to Reyna, he wanted to tell himself. But it was something else.

Nico and Reyna were together on that trip for half a month. Along with Coach Hedge who needed to get home to his wife, or so Frank told him. He wondered what had happened between the two demigods, how come they came to be so close, so fast in that one trip that… Nico ended up giving Reyna a gift.

Was he confused about that? That certain fact that Nico, who Percy had known since four years ago, became close with Reyna in a span of two weeks? Was that what he was so hung up about?

Who could blame him right? He’d been trying, especially once he and Annabeth had gotten out of Tartarus. He’d been trying _so hard_ to at least get in a ‘thank you’ because Nico had saved their asses time and time again. His ass in particular more than once.

 _“Not giving people a second thought… that can be dangerous_ ,” was what Nico had said before he went on the trip. That had offended him a bit, because he was spilling his guts out and here Nico was, shrugging it off with cryptic, vague bullshit that somehow… got to him?

Then there was the confession from five days ago… that somehow confused him because really? Nico had a crush on him? For how long? He didn’t even get to find out because soon enough, he was faced with the fact that he had to go to his mom and tell her that he’s fine.

Nico walked into the dining hall, followed by a somewhat drowsy Jason. Jason said something to Nico, to which the latter nodded and waved at him. They both settled down their respective, empty, lonely tables. Percy stared at Jason as he started eating. When did _they_ start hanging out?

Alright, Percy needed to settle this.

Determined, Percy stood and walked up to Nico’s table, where the younger demigod was currently napping. Percy smiled fondly.

He tapped Nico’s shoulder and received a groan. Percy being Percy, he ignored this open invitation to leave. He tapped again, thrice.

Nico twisted his head to squint at him, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Percy snickered, “Rise and shine, Nico! The mess hall isn’t the best napping place.”

Nico groaned and pushed away from the table. Percy sat down beside him. “What do you want, Percy?” Nico croaked in a demanding tone. So much like his father.

Percy kept smiling on, raising a brow for effect, “What, I can’t greet you ‘good morning’ from time to time?”

Yeah, Percy, maybe if you kept the flow humorous, you wouldn’t sound so pathetic asking your question.

“You just did. What do you want?” Nico deadpanned.

Percy put his arms around himself and faked a shiver, “ _Brr,_ Nico. So cold.” Nico’s glare was _not_ going away.

He put his hands up in surrender, “Alright, alright. Sorry. I really just came here to talk to you though.”

A look of disbelief flashed through Nico’s face. Percy gave him a look. This boy, seriously.

Percy dropped his gaze on the table, at Nico’s untouched breakfast. “Seriously, Nico. I just had something in my mind. I _do_ wanna ask you something.”

Silence was his answer. Percy took this as his cue to continue. “You…”

He cursed at himself internally. Just get it out of your system, Jackson. In his peripheral, he caught Nico pick up his drink. “You consider me a friend, right?”

Percy jumped in his seat when Nico started to have a coughing fit.

“What kind of question _is_ that?!” Nico half-shouted. He downed his cup.

“Whoa, there. Calm down with the drink. What are you drinking anyway?” Great job passing the subject on, Jackson. Three pointer. He grabbed at Nico’s cup.

“You’re not gonna taste what I just drank, you know that right?” Nico asked as Percy drank.

“Yeah, but I wanted a drink too,” Percy replied with a smile. Nico huffed, and it sounded close enough to a laugh so Percy took this as a good thing.

“Well?” he asked, and it almost made him nervous all over again, cradling the cup in his hands. Nico went into deep thought for a moment. As in, he leaned into the table and unconsciously grabbed at his ear. That was usually the cue for when Nico was _really_ thinking.

Nico dropped his hand and looked at Percy. His face scrunched up, “I don’t remember ever _hating_ you, Jackson.”

Percy took a deep breath, did Nico mean when he—Percy blinked, yeah, probably. Maybe he was thinking too deep in it. People usually push away from crushes, right? To like, distance themselves? Nico seemed to enjoy their little Argo II crew night swimming thing.

“Well?” That took Percy out of his thoughts, thank goodness. He’d just been staring at Nico all this while. Gods, he hoped that he didn’t come across as a bit creepy.

“Yeah,” Percy gave Nico a genuine smile. “Thanks for the clarification, Nico.” Nico didn’t look at him that time and that might have been Percy’s cue to leave. So he stood and started to walk away.

In the corner of his eye, he spotted Reyna by the edge of the mess hall, looking at him. Percy halted in his tracks.

“Oh, uh, also,” Percy stammered, turning to look at Nico. Nico visibly tensed in his seat as he behind himself to look at him. Percy pretended not to be a little bit hurt by that because it was irrational.

“…Reyna’s wearing a nice shirt,” and with that, he absconded the scene, heading directly towards where he saw Reyna.

When he was out of the hall, Reyna was nowhere in sight. Percy sighed a little before heading back in. He needed a hug.

As he passed the tables by number, he was suddenly met with the fact that Nico hadn’t touched his food and that Jason was missing from his seat.

Yep, definitely needed a hug.

So he snuck towards the Athena table and sat down between Malcolm and Annabeth.

“How’d your talk go?” Annabeth asked softly, putting jam on toast almost methodically. Percy was pretty sure that it was for him.

Percy laid his head on her shoulder, watching her movement, “Pretty good. I think.”

“It’ll work out fine, Seaweed Brain. You’ll see.”

Annabeth was always right.


End file.
